1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a recurrent billing maintenance system, and more particularly, to a system for automatically providing updates to a customer billing account information via a computer network
2. Description of the Related Art
An increasing number of service organizations, stores, merchants, utilities, banks, Internet merchants and others (collectively “merchants”) are enrolling repeat customers in a recurrent billing program, where a customer's transaction card (e.g., credit card) is automatically billed on a periodic basis. If a customer agrees to the recurrent billing feature, the customer provides the merchant with a credit card account number to which the billing amount is applied. The merchant may then establish a customer database of account numbers or customer numbers with additional information for charging the customer account.
Over time, authorization for some of the established recurrent billing accounts may be declined because the information in the merchant database is outdated. For example, a credit card provider may change a credit card account number or expiration date or simply cancel the customer's credit card privileges. Upon receiving the “authorization declined” response from the transaction card company (e.g., the provider), the merchant typically contacts the customer to determine the cause of the decline. Alternatively, a merchant may continuously try to re-authorize the charge, hoping that the discrepancy which led to the “authorization declined” is removed and that the charge will eventually be accepted by the provider.
However, where the merchant attempts to contact the customer, several problems may arise. For example, the customer may not be available or may not be aware that his credit card privilege status has changed. Further, the customer may be unwilling to provide the merchant with a supplemental or secondary transaction card suitable for recurrent billing. Moreover, for the merchant, updating of the information by attempting to contact the customer may be inefficient and costly. The merchant may be faced with allotting additional workforce for carrying out a customer contact program which returns little in the way of answers and revenues. Further, where the customer's charge privileges have been revoked by a provider, it is often a difficult task for the merchant to secure another form of payment when the customer may just as well cancel the customer's enrollment in the merchant's recurrent billing program. That is, the declined authorization may provide the customer the opportunity to cancel the order or cancel the merchant's access to the transaction card. Consequently, a need exists for a system which would allow a merchant to update the merchant's recurrent billing database as changes to a customer's transaction card information occurs.
Presently, no known sufficient system or method for automatically providing updated recurrent billing customer database information to a merchant exists. There are various systems and methods described in the prior art, however, which address a similar problem. One such system which teaches a Distributed Information Logistics Service (DILS) that automatically retrieves updated files from a remote server for delivery to local client programs is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,175 issued Feb. 22, 2000 to Chow et al. (herein incorporated by reference). The system disclosed in Chow et al. uses a software agent called a Revision Manager which aids in insuring that a merchant may retrieve the most recent version of a document the merchant has previously accessed over a network.
The Revision Manager software disclosed in Chow et al., acts as a kind of client connected to a network server, which is capable of sending updated documents to a merchant who has previously accessed an older version of the document. In Chow et al., the merchant is able to identify for storage in a cache managed the Revision Manager, frequently used individual network retrievable documents. In one embodiment, the merchant is able to designate the frequency at which the Revision Manager notifies the merchant of changes to the identified documents. In another embodiment, the merchant will be automatically notified of changes when the merchant attempts to access a document's older version.
While the Chow et al. system may be adequate for automatically receiving updated documents over a network, the system is insufficient for use in updating a recurrent billing customer database. For example, the Chow et al. system does not enable a merchant to make changes to the documents stored in the Revision Manager Cache. Consequently, where a merchant wishes make a change to a recurrent billing customer's information (e.g., the customer account number), the Chow et al system is insufficient for providing a means to make the change.
Moreover, the Chow et al. system provides update services for only those documents specified by the Revision Manager system user. For a merchant who wishes to add a customer to a customer update database, Chow et al. offers no way of ensuring that the customer (e.g., document) maintains a valid transaction account. That is, where a merchant wishes to pre-authorize a customer transaction account prior to adding the customer to a system for providing updates, the Chow et al. system would be insufficient to accomplish the pre-authorization task.
It is therefore desired to create a system which will update a merchant's customer recurrent billing database in response to changes made to the customer billing information. A system of great advantage to the merchant may be able to update the merchant's customer database in response to changes made by the transaction account provider or by the merchant.